


Compartmentalize

by MFLuder



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Episode Related, Episode: s01e03 Malama Ka Aina (Respect the Land), Gen, One-Sided Attraction, Pining, Steve McGarrett & Danny "Danno" Williams Friendship, Steve is gay and Danny is bi thanks for coming to my TED Talk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-08
Updated: 2019-02-08
Packaged: 2019-10-24 06:07:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17699072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MFLuder/pseuds/MFLuder
Summary: He’s got a Danny-sized problem. Danny-shaped, too.





	Compartmentalize

**Author's Note:**

> This was actually the first H50 fic I wrote, but it's taken a year to get off my hard drive.

Danny walks out of their office dressed in a suit with a slightly better class of tie, sitting askew because the shirt isn’t bespoke so the neck’s too small for him. It only serves to emphasize his broad shoulders on an otherwise small frame, though, and Steve knows this is a problem.

He’s got a Danny-sized problem. Danny-shaped, too.

“How do I look?” Danny asks, holding his arms out, swagger slightly more pronounced as he preens. 

Steve swallows and licks his lips because he’s honestly considering if the walk is to accommodate certain…body parts, that, like Danny’s shoulders, might be a bit bigger than his height ratio would suggest.

Steve’s pretty good at this, though, and smoothly nods and says in an almost jovial tone, “Looks good,” and the _brah_ is almost on his lips, but he decides that’s overcompensating.

They climb into the low-slung Porsche after a battle over who drives that Steve wins because he always does, but also because this time the car is on loan and he’s the boss so if anything happens, it’s on him. He even drives at an almost normal speed because they should look good rolling up at the casino; put together, not like windblown tourists.

The car purrs under him and he’s hardly able to tell when he shifts gears, all the while enjoying Danny’s bitching about what a shame it is he doesn’t get to drive and next time he doesn’t care what Steve says, he’s going to take the car out for a spin. A safe, non-crazy spin. Steve smirks because he figures even Danny couldn’t help but speed in this beauty. He’s got a Camaro, after all. Danny calls Steve a maniac, but Danny can be reckless, too, if Grace isn’t in the car.

The women at the light momentarily derail Danny’s rant. Steve looks at them, and yeah, they’re beautiful. A tad young. Too female for his tastes. He guns it, letting the engine roar. 

“What are you doing?! Turn around!” Danny shouts over the wind, and he doesn’t stop a running commentary about how the women are the one good part of the island for at least a mile.

Steve huffs an internal sigh of amusement. Amusement at Danny, and at himself. He’s done it this time, finding himself interested not just in a closeted man – and in the Navy they all had to be to some extent or another – but an actual heterosexual one.

Shortly before they reach the gates of the house where the illegal games are being held, Danny ponders out loud, “Does this look weird?”

“Hmm?” Steve asks, glancing at the GPS for the last few turns.

“Us. Showing up in a car together. Dressed up. Kind of feels more like a date than two single men.”

“Whales, Danny. And the cover isn’t that deep. It doesn’t say anything about being single or not. Nothing says that whales can’t travel in packs.”

Danny considers that for a moment. “Well, I’m still flirting with any hot waitresses. You know, within the confines of doing my duty.”

Steve smiles a little. “You do that.”

“It’s pod, by the way,” Danny says, shoving into Steve’s space to use the rearview mirror to fix an imaginary out-of-place hair.

“Pod.”

“Wolves travel in packs. Whales travel in pods.”

He’s unable to restrain from his rolling his eyes, even as he contains a smile to a small smirk. It’s never a good idea to let Danny know when Steve is indulging him. Danny’s probably seen more wolves than whales in Jersey, but _he’s_ correcting the guy who _grew up_ in Hawaii.

Then they’re pulling into the driveway. Steve is all focus, faux casual as he glances at Sid. 

“Aloha, gentleman. Name?”

“Edwards.”

Sid okays them. The valet opens the door for him and he tries not to sweat at the way Danny buttons his jacket coming around the back of the car. Inside, he swats Danny’s hand as he tries to get at a champagne glass and that makes him sweat, too – he’s showing too much, touching Danny in public like that, like he has a right to what Danny does – but his partner just looks disgruntled for a moment before he’s accosted by another roller in the game asking him for a drink.

Steve knows Danny’s got it so he lets his eyes wander over the crowd, clocking Kono serving at a bar cart, eyes darting over the other guests, while keeping an ear to Danny’s conversation and trying not to laugh.

His partner starts moving forward again. “How come I look like a waiter, you look like James Bond?”

“I don’t know,” Steve responds, not daring to look. Knowing actually it’s in part Danny’s height because some men (and people, generally) are idiots who underestimate the bulk in favor of seeing someone, in their opinion, who is literally _beneath_ them – and Steve would like to teach those assholes a lesson. But honestly, he also doesn’t understand because Danny is making his mouth dry and Steve feels the urge to lay a claiming hand on the small of his partner’s back. To let the old man know the person he thought was a waiter is in fact _his_ and Steve knows _he_ wouldn’t be underestimated. Using his looks wasn’t something the SEALs taught explicitly, but you spend enough time in shitholes and needing to get things from smarmy criminals, you learn to use what you have.

“He doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” he mutters, keeping his hands to himself like a work partner should. If Danny knew the thoughts in his mind, he’d be impressed by Steve’s professionalism. Of course, if Danny knew his thoughts, there’d be bigger problems.

The night progresses, they’re made, and Steve watches, detached, as Danny and Kono make out in the drunken couple tactic that rarely made it into the military playbook but does seem to be a thing for police work. It’s a professional ploy, neither of them have feelings for the other, and yet something churns in his gut and if he squeezes the trigger a bit harder than necessary, well no one is the wiser.

The whole affair is settled a few days later: Sid’s a hero, Chin is moody, and Danny frets harder about his ex.

Steve’s got it bad. He can’t bear to see Danny upset and honestly, he doesn’t think he’s seen a more devoted parent than Danny; everything else aside, it bothers him to see Danny like this. He’s watched him rehearse at least five versions of a speech to get Rachel to let him see Grace and it’s uncomfortable.

So two days after the operation he finds himself waving everyone else home while he stays in the office to do a little intelligence digging. It’s ten that night when he puts in a call to the governor, noting Danny’s many achievements already – especially as a mainlander – how he’s necessary for Steve to complete his task and that if he were to lose a custody battle and end up moving back to Jersey, Hawaii would less safe for it.

He can’t say it’s a selfless move. Steve wants Danny here, on the island. He knows Danny won’t return any attraction on Steve’s part – and Steve won’t bring that up ever, he’s a SEAL, used to putting his own desires in a box and burying them – hell, he doesn’t think Danny even _likes_ him at this point, merely tolerates him. But this is something he can do for his partner. It’s the kind of thing that teams do, it’s more than a handjob in the back of a cave somewhere in Kuwait that’s driven solely out of desperation and survival instinct than desire. It actually _means_ something.

So when Danny brings it up, he doesn’t deny it.

“Governor doesn’t discuss her business with me,” he says instead. What he doesn’t say is how good Danny looks with his sleeves rolled up his forearms. “I might have heard something about Step-Stan building a new hotel though, and uh, you need government approval for that.”

He can’t help the smug expression he knows is crossing his face – all in all, he’s pretty proud of himself. Thrilled for Danny that it worked. Although at the moment, that sense of smugness is vying for control with the sudden heat that Danny’s hand brings where he touches Steve’s arm. He stops and faces his partner.

Danny’s halting gesturing turns into a hand held out to shake. 

“Thank you.”

Steve thinks, _this is how normal coworkers respond_ , and clasps Danny’s hand in his.

He can see real gratitude, and maybe even grudging respect in Danny’s expression.

“Let me ask you something,” Steve continues, because sometimes, he doesn’t know when to stop. “How far deep did you have to dig? I mean, how much of your soul did you just lose by actually appreciating me?”

He watches Danny lose the gratitude in favor of belligerent snarkiness.

“Uh, I’m measuring.”

“Right,” Steve says, and he gives a small smile, hoping the churn of his emotions doesn’t show on his face. And then: “Maybe you’re not as alone around here as you think. Danno.”

The gratitude is back for a moment and Steve walks away.

Steve thinks to himself, _enough_. He puts certain feelings, like how his body hums when he’s next to Danny, how Danny looked in that suit, the way Danny says “are you insane” almost fondly now in his tirades against Steve, and he separates them from things like having fun pushing Danny’s buttons and laughing at the way his face gets red or the way his finger pointing gets more emphatic the longer he’s yelling at Steve, or how good he is at his job and how he has Steve’s back despite his bitching. He compartmentalizes. That’s something the SEALs _did_ train him for. He’ll probably keep pushing the boundaries because Danny manages to press _his_ buttons, often without seeming to notice, but he won’t cross them.

Steve isn’t going to get Danny the way his body is slowly beginning to want, something it hasn’t needed in a long time, but if he gets to keep _Danny_ , along with Chin and Kono, and even Gracie, as team, as family – _ohana_ – it’ll be enough for him.

**Author's Note:**

> Follow and chat with me [on tumblr](http://mf-luder-xf.tumblr.com)!


End file.
